portrait, while Magda wandered alone through the woods or sculled asolitary boat up the river, helped to minimize the strainconsiderably.

Nevertheless, it was a relief to everyone concerned when Gillian andCoppertop were added to the party. A strained atmosphere was somewhatdifficult of accomplishment anywhere within the joyous vicinity of thelatter, while Gillian's tranquil and happy nature reacted on the wholehousehold.

"That's an extraordinary friendship," commented Quarrington one day ashe and his hostess stood at the window watching Gillian and Magda,returned from shopping in the village, approaching up the drive. "Mrs.Grey is so simple and--to use an overworked word--so essentiallywomanly."

"She hasn't found her soul yet," said Lady Arabella. Adding withsudden daring: "Suppose you find it for her, Michael?"

"I don't think the search would interest me," he returned coolly. "Ihaven't the instinct of the prospector." He paused, then went onslowly and as though making the admission almost against his will:"But I'd like to paint her."

"A portrait of her?"

"No, not a portrait."

"Then you mean you want her to sit for your 'Circe'?"

Lady Arabella knew all about the important picture he had in mind topaint. They had often discussed it together during the progress of thesittings she had been giving him, and she was aware that so far he hadbeen unable to find a suitable model.

"Yes," he said slowly. "She is the perfect model for such a subject--body and soul."

Lady Arabella ignored the sneer.

"Then why not ask her to sit for you?"

Quarrington's brows drew together.

"You know the answer to that, I think, Lady Arabella," he answeredcurtly.

Gillian and Magda, laden with parcels, entered the room as she spoke,and, before Quarrington could prevent her, she had flashed round onher god-daughter.

"Magda, here's Michael in need of a model for the best picture he'sever likely to paint, and it seems you exactly fit the bill. Will yousit for him?"

Followed an astonished silence. Gillian glanced apprehensively towardsMagda. She felt as though Lady Arabella had suddenly let off afirework in their midst. Magda halted in the process of unwrapping asmall parcel.

"What is the subject of the picture?"

There was a perceptible pause. Then Lady Arabella took the bull by thehorns.

"Circe," she said tersely.

"Oh!" Magda seemed to reflect. "She turned men into swine, didn'tshe?" She looked across at Quarrington. "And I'm to understand youthink I'd make a suitable model for that particular subject?"

"She was a very beautiful person," suggested Gillian hastily.

"Mr. Quarrington hasn't answered my question," persisted Magda.

He met her glance with cool defiance.

"Then, yes," he returned with a little bow. "As Mrs. Grey has justremarked--Circle was very beautiful."

"You score," observed Magda demurely. There was a glint of amusementin her eyes.

"Yes, I think he does," agreed Lady Arabella, who was deriving animpish, pixie-like enjoyment from the situation. Then, recognisingthat it might be more diplomatic not to press the matter any furtherat the moment, she skilfully drew the conversation into otherchannels.

It was not until evening, after dinner, that she reverted to thesubject. They had all four been partaking of coffee and cigarettes onthe verandah, and subsequently she had proposed a stroll in the garden--a suggestion to which Gillian responded with alacrity. Magda, herslim length extended on a comfortably cushioned wicker lunge, shookher head.

"I'm too comfortable to stir," she declared idly.

Lady Arabella paused at the edge of the verandah and contemplated hercritically. Something in the girl's pose and in the long, lithe linesof her recumbent figure was responsible for her next remark.

"I can see you as Circe," she commented, "quite well." She tucked herarm into Gillian's and, as they moved away together, threw back overher shoulder: "By the way, have you two settled the vexed question ofthe model for the picture yet?"

Quarrington blew a thin stream of smoke into the air before replying.Then, looking quizzically across at Magda, he asked: "Have we?"

"Have we what?"

"Decided whether you will sit for my picture of Circe?"

Magda lifted her long white lids and met his glance.

"Why should I?" she asked lazily.

He shrugged his shoulders with apparent unconcern.

"No reason in the world--unless you feel inclined to do a good turn."

His indifference was maddening.

"I don't make a habit of doing good turns," she retorted sharply.

"So I should imagine."

The contemptuous edge to his voice roused her to indignation. Asalways, she found herself stung to the quick by the man's coollycritical attitude towards her. She was back once more in theatmosphere of their first meeting on the day he had come to herassistance in the fog. It seemed almost incredible that all thatfollowed had ever taken place--incredible that he had ever cared forher or taught her to care for him. At least he was making it veryclear to her now that he intended to cut those intervening memoriesout of his life.

It was a sheer challenge to her femininity, and everything that waswoman in her rose to meet it.

She smiled across at him engagingly.

"I might--perhaps--make an exception."

For a moment there was silence. Quarrington's gaze was riveted on herslim, supple figure with its perfect symmetry and rare grace of limb.It was difficult to interpret his expression. Magda wondered if hewere going to reject her offer. He seemed to be fighting something outwith himself--pulled two ways--the artist in him combating the man'simpulse to resist her.

Suddenly the artist triumphed. He rose and, coming to her side, stoodlooking down at her.

"Will you?" he said. "/Will you/?"

Something more than the artist spoke in his voice. It held a note ofpassionate eagerness, a clipped tensity that set all her pulsesracing.

She turned her head aside.

"Yes," she answered, a little breathlessly. "Yes--if you want me to."

CHAPTER XVIII

A READJUSTMENT OF IDEAS

Magda glanced from the divan covered with a huge tiger-skin toMichael, wheeling his easel into place. A week's hard work on the partof the artist had witnessed the completion of Lady Arabella'sportrait, and to-day he proposed to make some preliminary sketches for"Circe."

Magda felt oddly nervous and unsure of herself. This last fortnightpassed in daily companionship with Quarrington had proved aconsiderable strain. Not withstanding that she had consented to sitfor his picture of Circe, he had not deviated from the attitude whichhe had apparently determined upon from the first moment of her arrivalat the Hermitage--an attitude of aloof indifference to which was addeda bitterness of speech that continually thrust at her with itstrenchant cynicism. It was as though he had erected a high wallbetween them which Magda found no effort of hers could break down, andshe was beginning to ask herself whether he could ever really havecared for her at all. Surely no man who had once cared could be sohard--so implacably hard!

And now, alone with him in the big room which had been converted intoa temporary studio, she found herself overwhelmed by a feeling ofintense self-consciousness. She felt it would be impossible to bearthe coolly neutral gaze of those grey eyes for hours at a time. Shewished fervently that she had never consented to sit for the pictureat all.

"How do you want me to pose?" she inquired at last, endeavouring tospeak with her usual detachment and conscious that she was failingmiserably. "You haven't told me yet."

He laughed a little.

"I haven't the least intention of telling you," he replied. "'TheWielitzska' doesn't need advice as to how to pose."

Magda looked at him uncertainly.

"But you've given me no idea of what you want," she protested. "I musthave some idea to start from!"

"I want a recumbent Circe," he vouchsafed at last. "Hence the divan.Here is the goblet"--he held it out--"supposed to contain the fatalpotion which transformed men into swine. I leave the rest to you. Youposed very successfully for me some years ago--without my issuing anystage directions. Afterwards you played the part of a youthful Circe,I remember. You should be more experienced now."

She flushed under the cool, satirical tone. It seemed as though heneglected no opportunity of impressing on her the poor estimation inwhich he held her. Her thoughts flew back to a sunlit glade in a woodand to the grey-eyed, boyish-looking painter who had kissed her andcalled her "Witch-child!"

"You--you were kinder in those days," she said suddenly. She made afew steps towards him and stood looking up at him, her hands hangingloosely clasped in front of her, like a penitent school-girl.

"Saint Michel"--and at the sound of her old childish name for him hewinced. "Saint Michel, I don't think I can sit for you if--if you'regoing to be unkind. I thought I could, but--but--I can't!"

"Unkind?" he muttered.

"Yes," she said desperately. "Since I came here you've said a goodmany hard things to me. I--I dare say I've deserved them. But"--smiling up at him rather wanly--"it isn't always easy to accept one'sdeserts." She paused, then spoke quickly: "Couldn't we--while we'rehere together--behave like friends? Just friends? It's only for ashort time."

His face had whitened while she was speaking. He was silent for alittle and his hand, grasping the side of the big easel, slowlytightened its grip till the knuckles showed white like bone. At lasthe answered her.

"Very well--friends, then! So be it."

Impulsively she held out her hand. He took it in his and held it amoment, looking down at its slim whiteness. Then he bent his head andshe felt his lips hot against her soft palm.

A little shaken, she drew away from him and moved towards the divan.She paused beside it and glanced down reflectively at the goblet shestill carried in her hand, mentally formulating her conception ofCirce before she posed. An instant later and her voice rousedQuarrington from the momentary reverie into which he had fallen.

"How would this do?"

He looked up, and as his gaze absorbed the picture before him an eagerlight of pure aesthetic satisfaction leaped into his eyes.

"Hold that!" he exclaimed quickly. "Don't move, please!" And,snatching up a stick of charcoal, he began to sketch rapidly withswift, sure strokes.

The pose she had assumed was matchless. She was half-sitting, half-lying on the divan, the swathing draperies of her tunic outlining thewonderful modelling of her limbs. The upper part of her body, twistinga little from the waist, was thrown back as she leaned upon one arm,hand pressed palm downward on the tiger-skin. In her other hand sheheld a golden goblet, proffering the fatal draught, and her tiltedface with its strange, enigmatic smile and narrowed lids held all theseductive entreaty and beguilement, and the deep, cynical knowledge ofmankind, which are the garnerings of the Circes of this world.

At length Quarrington laid down his charcoal.

"It's a splendid pose," he said enthusiastically. "That sideways bendyou've given to your body--it's wonderful! But can you stand it, doyou think? Of course I'll give you rests as often as I can, but evenso it will be a very trying pose to hold."

Magda sat up, letting her feet slide slowly over the edge of thedivan. The "feet of Aurora" someone had once called them--white andarched, with rosy-tipped toes curved like the petals of a flower.

"I can hold it for a good while, I think," she answered evasively.

She did not tell him that even to her trained muscles the preservationof this particular pose, with its sinuous twist of the body, waslikely to prove somewhat of a strain. If the pose was so exactly whathe wanted for his Circe, he should have it, whatever the cost toherself.

And without knowing it, yielding to an impulse which she hardlyrecognised, Magda had taken the first step along the pathway ofservice and sacrifice trodden by those who love.

"It seems as though you were destined to be the model of my two'turning-point' pictures," commented Quarrington some days later,during one of the intervals when Magda was taking a brief rest. "Itwas the 'Repose of Titania' which first established my reputation, youknow."

"But this can't be a 'turning-point,' " objected Magda. "When you'vereached the top of the pinnacle of fame, so to speak, there isn't any'turning-point'--unless"--laughing--"you're going to turn round andclimb down again!"

"There's no top to the pinnacle of work--of achievement," he answeredquietly. "At least, there shouldn't be. One just goes on--slippingback a bit, sometimes, then scrambling on again." His glance returnedto the picture and Magda watched the ardour of the creative artistlight itself anew in his eyes. "That"--he nodded towards the canvas--"is going to be the best bit of work I've done."

"What made you"--she hesitated a moment--"what made you choose Circeas the subject?"

His face clouded over.

"The experience of a friend of mine."

Magda caught her breath.

"Not--you don't mean-----"

"Oh, no"--divining her thought--"not the friend of whom you know--wholoved the dancer. She hurt him"--looking at her significantly--"butshe didn't injure him to that extent. Circe turned men into swine, youremember. My friend was too fine a character for her to spoil likethat."

"I'm glad." Magda spoke very low, her head bent. She felt unable tomeet his eyes. After a short silence she asked: "Then what inspired--this picture?"

Was it some woman-episode that had occurred while he was abroad whichhad scored those new lines on his face, embittering the mouth andimplanting that sternly sad expression in the grey eyes? She must know--at all hazards, she must know!

Quarrington lit a cigarette.

"It's not a pretty story," he remarked harshly.

Magda glanced towards the picture. The enchanting, tilted face smiledat her from the canvas, faintly derisive.

"Tell it me," was all she said.

"There's very little to tell," he answered briefly. "There was a manand his wife--and another woman. Till the latter came along they wereabsolutely happy together--sufficient unto each other. The other womanwas one of the Circe type, and she broke the man. Broke him utterly. Ihappened to be in Paris at the time, and he came to see me there onhis way out to South America. He'd left his wife, left his work--everything. Just /quitted/! Since then I believe 'Frisco has seen moreof him than any other place. A man I know ran across him there andtold me he'd gone under--utterly."

"And the wife?"

"Dead"--shortly. "She'd no heart to go on living--no wish to. She diedwhen their first child was born--she and the child together--a fewmonths after her husband had left her."

Magda uttered a stifled cry of pity, but Quarrington seemed not tohear it.

"That woman was a twentieth-century Circe." He paused, then added withgrim conviction: "There's no forgiveness for a woman like that."

"Ah! Don't say that!"

The words broke impulsively from Magda's lips. The recollection of thesummer she had spent at Stockleigh rushed over her accusingly--and sherealised that actually she had come between Dan Storran and his wifevery much as the Circe woman of Michael's story had come between someother husband and wife.

A deep compassion for that unknown woman surged up within her. Surelyher burden of remorse must be almost more than she could endure! AndMagda--to whom penalties and consequences had hitherto been but veryunimportant factors with which she concerned herself as little aspossible--was all at once conscious of an intense thankfulness thatshe had not been thus punished, that she had quitted Stockleighleaving husband and wife still together. Together, they would find theway back into each other's hearts!

"I don't think that it is a case for relenting. But I oughtn't to havetold you about it. After all, neither the husband nor wife werefriends of yours. And you're looking quite upset over it. I didn'timagine that you were so easily moved to sympathy."

She looked away. Of late she had been puzzled herself at the new andunwonted emotions which stirred her.

"I don't think--I used to be," she said at last, uncertainly.

"Well, please don't take the matter too much to heart or you won't beable to assume the personality of Circe again when you've rested. Idon't want to paint the picture of a model of propriety!"

It seemed as though he were anxious to restore the conversation to alighter vein, and Magda responded gladly.

Michael assented and, picking up his palette, began squeezing outfresh shining little worms of paint on to it while Magda reassumed herpose. For a while he chatted intermittently, but presently he fellsilent, becoming more and more deeply absorbed in his work. Finally,when some remark of hers repeated a second time still remainedunanswered, she realised that he had completely forgotten herexistence. As far as he was concerned she was no longer MagdaWielitzska, posing for him, but Circe, the enchantress, whose amazingbeauty he was transferring to his canvas in glowing brushstrokes. Aswith all genius, the impulse of creative work had seized him suddenlyand was driving him on regardless of everything exterior to his art.

Time had ceased to matter to him, and Magda, with little nervous painsshooting first through one limb, then another, was wondering how muchlonger she could maintain the pose. She was determined not to give in,not to check him while that fervour of creation was upon him.

The pain was increasing. She felt as though she were being stabbedwith red-hot knives. Tiny beads of sweat broke out on her forehead,and her breath came gaspingly between her lips.

All at once the big easel at which Michael was standing receded out ofsight, and when it reappeared again it was quite close to her, swayingand nodding like a mandarin. Instinctively she put out her hand tosteady it, but it leaned nearer and nearer and finally gave a hugelurch and swooped down on top of her, and the studio and everything init faded out of sight. . . .

The metallic tinkle of the gold goblet as it fell from her hand androlled along the floor startled Michael out of his absorption. With asharp exclamation he flung down his brush and palette and strodehurriedly to the divan. Magda was lying half across it in a littlecrumpled heap, unconscious.

His first impulse to lift her up was arrested by something in herattitude, and he stood quite still, looking down at her, his facesuddenly drawn and very weary.

In the limp figure with its upturned face and the purple shadows whichfatigue had painted below the closed eyelids, there was anirresistible appeal. She looked so young, so helpless, and theknowledge that she had done this for him--forced her limbs intoagonised subjection until at last conscious endurance had failed her--moved him indescribably.

Surely this was a new Magda! Or else he had never known her. Had hebeen too hard--hard to her and pitilessly hard to himself--when he hadallowed the ugly facts of her flirtation with Kit Raynham to drive himfrom her?

Eighteen months ago! And in all those eighteen months no word ofgossip, no lightest breath of scandal against her, had reached hisears. Had he been merely a self-righteous Pharisee, enforcing thepenalty of old sins, bygone failings? A grim smile twisted his lips.If so, and he had made her suffer, he had at least suffered equallyhimself!

He stooped over the prone figure on the divan. Lower, lower still,till a tendril of dark hair that had strayed across her foreheadquivered beneath his breath. Then suddenly he drew back, jerkinghimself upright. Striding across the room he pealed the bell and, whena neat maidservant appeared in response, ordered sharply:

"Bring some brandy--quick! And ask Mrs. Grey to come here.Mademoiselle Wielitzska has fainted."

As she spoke Magda leaned back luxuriously against her cushions andglanced smilingly across at Michael where he sat with his hand on thetiller of the /Bella Donna/, the little sailing-yacht which LadyArabella kept for the amusement of her guests rather than for her ownenjoyment, since she herself could rarely be induced to go on board.

It had been what Magda called a "blue day"--the sky overhead a deepunbroken azure, the dimpling, dancing waters of the Solent flingingback a blue almost as vivid--and she and Quarrington had put out fromNetherway harbour in the morning and crossed to Cowes.

Here they had lunched and Magda had purchased one or two of thenecessities of life (from a feminine point of view) not procurable inthe village emporia at Netherway. Afterwards, as there was still ampletime before they need think of returning home, Michael had suggestedan hour's run down towards the Needles.

The /Bella Donna/ sped gaily before the wind, and neither of itsoccupants, engrossed in conversation, noticed that away to windward abank of sullen cloud was creeping forward, slowly but surely eating upthe blue of the sky.

"Of course it will contribute towards finishing the picture."Quarrington answered Magda's laughing comment composedly. "A blow likethis will have done you all the good in the world, and I shan't haveyou collapsing on my hands again as you did a week ago."

She was feeling unaccountably happy and light-hearted. Since the daywhen she had fainted during the sitting Michael seemed to havechanged. He no longer gave utterance to those sudden, gibing speecheswhich had so often hurt her intolerably. That sense of his aloofness,as though a great wall rose between them, was gone. Somehow she feltthat he had drawn nearer to her, and once or twice those grey,compelling eyes had glowed with a smothered fire that had set herheart racing unsteadily within her.

"Haven't you enjoyed to-day, then?" he inquired, responding to herquestion with another.

"I've loved it," she answered simply. "I think if I'd been a man Ishould have chosen to be a sailor."

"Then it's a good thing heaven saw to it that you were a woman. Theworld couldn't have done without its Wielitzska."

"Oh, I don't know"--half-indifferently, half-wistfully. "It'sastonishing how little necessary anyone really is in this world. If Iwere drowned this afternoon the Imperial management would soon findsomeone to take my place."

"But your friends wouldn't," he said quietly.

Magda laughed a little uncertainly.

"Well, I won't suggest we put them to the test, so please take me homesafely."

As she spoke a big drop of rain splashed down on to her hand. Thenanother and another. Simultaneously she and Michael glanced upwards tothe sky overhead, startlingly transformed from an arch of quiveringblue into a monotonous expanse of grey, across which came sweepingdrifts of black cloud, heavy with storm.

"By Jove! We're in for it!" muttered Quarrington.

His voice held a sudden gravity. He knew the danger of thoseunexpected squalls which trap the unwary in the Solent, and inwardlyhe cursed himself for not having observed the swift alteration in theweather.

The /Bella Donna/, too, was by no means the safest of craft in whichto meet rough weather. She was slipping along very fast now, andMichael's keen glance swept the gray landscape to where, at the mouthof the channel, the treacherous Needles sentinelled the open sea.

"We must bring her round--quick!" he said sharply, springing up. "Canyou take the tiller? Do you know how to steer?"

Magda caught the note of urgency in his voice.

"I can do what you tell me," she said quietly.

"Do you know port from starboard?" he asked grimly.

"Yes. I know that."

Even while they had been speaking the wind had increased, churning thesea into foam-flecked billows that swirled and broke only to gatheranew.

It was ticklish work bringing the /Bella Donna/ to the wind. Twice sherefused to come, lurching sickeningly as she rolled broadside on tothe race of wind-driven waves. The third time she heeled over till hercanvas almost brushed the surface of the water and it seemed as thoughshe must inevitably capsize. There was an instant's agonised suspense.Then she righted herself, the mainsail bellied out as the boom swungover, and the tense moment passed.

"Frightened?" queried Quarrington when he had made fast the mainsheet.

Magda smiled straight into his eyes.

"No. We almost capsized then, didn't we?"

"It was a near shave," he answered bluntly.

They did not speak much after that. They had enough to do to catch thewind which seemed to bluster from all quarters at once, coming inviolent, gusty spurts that shook the frail little vessel from stem tostern. Time after time the waves broke over her bows, flooding thedeck and drenching them both with stinging spray.

Magda sat very still, maintaining her grip of the wet and slipperytiller with all the strength of her small, determined hands. Her limbsached with cold. The piercing wind and rain seemed to penetratethrough her thin summer clothing to her very skin. But unwaveringlyshe responded to Michael's orders as they reached her through thebellowing of the gale. Her eyes were like stars and her lips closed ina scarlet line of courage.

"Port your helm! /Hard/! . . . Hold on!"

Then the thudding swing of the boom as the /Bella Donna/ slewed roundon a fresh tack.

The hurly-burly of the storm was bewildering. In the last hour or sothe entire aspect of things had altered, and Magda was conscious of afreakish sense of the unreality of it all. With the ridiculousinconsequence of thought that so often accompanies moments of acuteanxiety she reflected that Noah probably experienced a somewhatsimilar astonishment when he woke up one morning to find that theFlood had actually begun.

It seemed as though the storm had reached out long arms and drawn thewhole world of land and sea and sky into its turbulent embrace.Driving sheets of rain blurred the coastline on either hand, while thewind caught up the grey waters into tossing, crested billows and flungthem down again in a smother of angry spume.

Overhead, it screamed through the rigging of the little craft like atormented devil, tearing at the straining canvas with devouringfingers while the slender mast groaned beneath its force.

Suddenly a terrific gust of wind seemed to strike the boat like anactual blow. Magda saw Michael leap aside, and in the same instantcame a splitting, shattering report as the mast snapped in half and atangled mass of wood and cordage and canvas fell crash on to the deckwhere he had been standing.

Magda uttered a cry and sprang to her feet. For an instant her heartseemed to stop beating as she visioned him beneath the mass of tackle.Or had he been swept off his feet--overboard into the welter of grey,surging waters that clamoured round the boat?

The moment of uncertainty seemed endless, immeasurable. Then Michaelappeared, stepping across the wreckage, and came towards her. Therelief was almost unendurable. She stretched out shaking hands.

"Oh, Michael! . . . Michael!" she cried sobbingly.

And all at once she was in his arms. She felt them close about her,strong as steel and tender as love itself. In the rocking, helplessboat, with the storm beating up around them and death a sudden,imminent hazard, she had come at last into haven.

An hour later the storm had completely died away. It had begun toabate in violence almost immediately after the breaking of the /BellaDonna's/ mast. It was as though, having wreaked its fury and executedall the damage possible short of absolute destruction, it wassatisfied. With the same suddenness with which it had arisen it sankaway, leaving a sulky, sunless sky brooding above a sullen sea stillheaving restlessly with the aftermath of tempest.

The yacht had drifted gradually out of mid-channel shorewards, andafter one or two unsuccessful efforts Quarrington at last succeeded incasting anchor. Then he turned to Magda, who had been assisting in theoperation, with a smile.

"That's about all we can do," he said. "We're perfectly helpless tillsome tug or steamer comes along."

"Probably they'll run us down," she suggested. "We're in the fairway,aren't we?"

"Yes--which is about our best hope of getting picked up before night."Then, laying his hand on her arm: "Are you very cold and wet?"

Magda laughed--laughed out of sheer happiness. What did being coldmatter, or wet either, if Michael loved her? And she was sure now thathe did, though there had been but the one moment's brief embrace.Afterwards he had had his hands full endeavouring to keep the /BellaDonna/ afloat.

"Oh, I'm all right--men's clothing being adapted for use, notornament! But I must find something to wrap you up in. We may be herefor hours and the frock you're wearing has about as much warmingcapacity as a spider's web."

He disappeared below into the tiny, single-berthed cabin, andpresently returned armed with a couple of blankets, one of which heproceeded to wrap about Magda's shoulders, tucking the other over herknees where she sat in the stern of the boat.

"I don't want them both," she protested, resisting. "You take one."

There was something rather delightful in this unconventionalcomradeship of discomfort.

A warm flush dyed her face from brow to throat. He regarded her withquizzical eyes. Behind their tender mockery lurked something else--something strong and passionate and imperious, momentarily held inleash. But she knew it was there--could feel the essential, imperativedemand of it.

"Well? Does the prospect alarm you?"

Magda forced herself to meet his glance.

"So soon?" she repeated hesitantly.

"Yes. As soon as it can be accomplished," he said triumphantly.

He seated himself beside her and took her in his arms, blankets andall.

"So I did. I'm scrapping the beliefs of half a lifetime because I loveyou. I've fought against it--tried not to love you--kept away fromyou! But it was stronger than I."

"Saint Michel, I'm so glad--glad it was stronger," she saidtremulously, a little break in her voice.

He bent his head and kissed her lips, and with the kiss she gave himback she surrendered her very self into his keeping. She felt his armsstrain about her, and the fierce pressure of their clasp taught herthe exquisite joy of pain that is born of love.

She yielded resistlessly, every fibre of her being quiveringresponsive to the overwhelming passion of love which had at laststormed and broken down all barriers--both the man's will to resistand her own defences.

Somewhere at the back of her consciousness Diane's urgent warning:/"Never give your heart to any man. Take everything, but do notgive!"/ tinkled feebly like the notes of a worn-out instrument. Buteven had she paused to listen to it she would only have laughed at it.She knew better.

Love was the most wonderful thing in the world. If it meant anythingat all, it meant giving. And she was ready to give Michael everythingshe had--to surrender body, soul, and spirit, the threefold gift thata man demands of his mate.

She drew herself out of his arms and slipped to her knees beside him.

"Saint Michel, do you believe in me now?"

"Believe in you? I don't know whether I believe in you or not. But Iknow I love you! . . . That's all that matters. I love you!"

"No, no!" She resisted his arms that sought to draw her back into hisembrace. "I want more than that. I'm beginning to realise things.There must be trust in love. . . . Michael, I'm not really hard--andselfish, as they say. I've been foolish and thoughtless, perhaps. ButI've never done any harm. Not real harm. I've never"--she laughed alittle brokenly--"I've never turned men into swine, Michael. . . .I've hurt people, sometimes, by letting them love me. But, I didn'tknow, then! Now--now I know what love is, I shall be different. Quitedifferent. Saint Michel, I know now--love is self-surrender."

The tremulous sweetness of her, the humble submissiveness of herappeal, could not but win their way. Michael's lingering disbeliefwavered and broke. She had been foolish, spoilt and thoughtless, butshe had never done any real harm. Men had loved her--but how could itbe otherwise? And perhaps, after all, they were none the worse forhaving loved her.

Deliberately Michael flung the past behind him and with it his lastdoubt of her. He drew her back into his arms, against his heart, andtheir lips met in a kiss that held not only love but utter faith andconfidence--a pledge for all time.

"Beloved!" he whispered. "My beloved!"

CHAPTER XX

NIGHT

Michael and Magda stood together on the deck of the crippled yachtwhich now rocked idly on a quite placid sea. Dusk was falling. Thatfirst glorious, irrecoverable hour when love had come into its own waspast, and the consideration of things mundane was forcing itself ontheir notice--more especially consideration of their particularplight.

"It looks rather as though we may have to spend the night here,"observed Quarrington, his eyes scanning the channel void of anywelcome sight of sail or funnel.

Magda's brows drew together in a little troubled frown.

"Marraine and Gillian will be frightfully worried and anxious," shesaid uneasily. It was significant of the gradual alteration in heroutlook that this solicitude for others should have rushed first ofanything to her lips.

"Well, if it's to come to a choice between Mrs. Grundy and Davy Jones,I think I should decide to face Mrs. Grundy! Anyway, people can't saymuch more--or much worse--things about me than they've said already."

Quarrington frowned moodily.

"I'd like to kick myself for bringing you out to-day and landing youinto this mess. I can't stand the idea of people gossiping about you."

"They've left me very little reputation at any time. A little lesscan't hurt me."

His eyes grew stormy.

"Don't!" he said sharply. "I hate to hear you talk like that."

"But it's true! No public woman gets a fair chance."

"/You/ will--when you're my wife," he said between his teeth. "I'llsee to that."

Magda glanced at him swiftly.

"Then you don't want me to--to give up dancing after we're married?"

"Certainly I don't. I shall want you to do just as you like. I've noplace for the man who asks his wife to 'give up' things in order tomarry him. I've no more right to ask you to give up dancing than youhave to ask me to stop painting."

Magda smiled at him radiantly.

"Saint Michel, you're really rather nice," she observed impertinently."So few men are as sensible as that. I shall call you the 'Wise Man,'I think."

"In spite of to-day?" he queried whimsically, with a rueful glance atthe debris of mast and canvas huddled on the deck.

"/Because/ of to-day," she amended softly. "It's--it's very wise to bein love, Michael."

He drew her into his arms and his lips found hers.

"I think it is," he agreed.

Another hour went by, and still there came no sign of any passingvessel.

"Why the devil isn't there a single tug passing up and down just whenwe happen to want one?" demanded Quarrington irately of theunresponsive universe. He swung round on Magda. "I suppose you'restarving?" he went on, in his voice a species of savage discontent--that unreasonable fury to which masculine temperament is prone whenconfronted with an obstacle which declines to yield either to force orpersuasion.

"It is," he assented. "All the same, I believe I could consume a tinof bully beef and feel humbly grateful for it at the present moment!"

Magda had a sudden inspiration.

"Michael! Let's forage in the locker! There's almost sure to be somebiscuits or chocolate there. Marraine nearly always has things likethat put on board. And there may be something left from the lastsupply."

A brief search brought to light a half-tin of biscuits and some plainchocolate, and off these, with the addition of a bottle of soda-water,also discovered, they proceeded to make an impromptu meal. It was asomewhat thin substitute for the perfectly appointed little dinner ofwhich they would have partaken in the ordinary course of events at theHermitage, but when you have been a good many hours without food ofany description, and spent the greater part of the time in "savingyour own life at sea," as Michael put it, even biscuits and chocolatehave their uses.

When the improvised feast was over, Quarrington explored the recessesof the tiny hold and unearthed a lantern, which he proceeded to lightand attach to the broken mast. It burned with a flickering, uncertainlight, momentarily threatening to go out altogether.

"We're not precisely well-equipped with lights," he remarked grimly."But at least that's a precaution--as long as it lasts! It may--or maynot--save us from being run down."

Twilight deepened slowly into dark. The lights of Yarmouth sprang intobeing, a cluster of lambent orange points studding the dim coast ofthe Island. One by one the stars twinkled out in the dusky sky, and awaning moon, thin and frail like a worn sickle, flung a quiveringribbon of silver across the sea.

It was strangely still and quiet. Now and again the idle ruddercreaked as the boat swung to the current. Once there came the long-drawn hoot of a distant siren. Beyond these fitful sounds only thegurgle of water lapping the sides of the boat broke the silence.

"We're here till morning," said Quarrington at last. "You may as wellgo to bed."

"To bed?"

"Well, there's a cabin, isn't there?"--smiling. "And a more or lessuncomfortable bunk. Come down and see what you can make of it as anabiding-place for the night."

"I shan't sleep. I'll do sentry-go on deck"--laughing. "It wouldn't dofor us both to go comfortably asleep and get run down without evenhaving a shot at making our presence known!"

"Then I'll keep watch with you," said Magda.

"You'll do nothing of the sort. You'll go down to the cabin andsleep."

"Let me stay, Michael. I couldn't bear to think of your watching allthrough the night while I slept comfortably below."

"You won't sleep /comfortably/--if my estimate of the look of thatbunk is correct. But you'll be out of the cold. Come, be sensible,Magda. You're not suitably attired for a night watch. You'd beperished with cold before morning."

"Well, let us take it in turns, then," she suggested. "I'll sleep fourhours and then I'll keep a look-out while you have a rest."

"No," he said quietly.

"Then we'll both watch," she asserted. Through the starlit dark hecould just discern her small head turned defiantly away from him.

"Has it occurred to you," he asked incisively, "what a night spent inthe open might mean to you? Rheumatism is not precisely the kind ofthing a dancer wants to cultivate."

"Well, I'm not going below, anyway."

She sat down firmly and Quarrington regarded her a moment in silence.

"You baby!" he said at last in an amused voice.

And the next moment she felt herself picked up as easily as though shewere in very truth the baby he had called her and carried swiftly downthe few steps into the cabin. The recollection of that day of heraccident in the fog, when he had carried her from the wrenched andtwisted car into his own house, rushed over her. Now, as then, shecould feel the strength of his arms clasped about her, the masterfulpurpose of the man that bore her whither he wished regardless ofwhether she wanted to go or not.

He laid her down on the bunk and, bending over her, kept his hands onher shoulders.

"Now," he demanded, "are you going to stay there?"

A faint rebellion still stirred within her.

"Supposing I say 'no'!"--irresolutely.

"I'm not supposing anything so unlikely," he assured her. "I'm merelywaiting to hear you say 'yes.'"

She recognised the utter futility of trying to pit her will againstthe indomitable will of the man beside her.

"Michael, you are a bully!" she protested indignantly, half angry withhim.

She almost flung the word at him, and instantly she felt him lift hishands from her shoulders and heard his footsteps as he tramped out ofthe cabin and up on to the deck. Presently he returned, carrying theblankets which he had wrapped round her earlier in the course of theirvigil. Magda accepted them with becoming docility.

"Thank you, Wise Man," she said meekly.

He stood looking down at her in the faint moonlight that slanted inthrough the open door of the cabin, and all at once something in theintentness of his gaze awakened her to a sudden vivid consciousness ofthe situation--of the hour and of her absolute aloneness with him.Their solitude was as complete as though they had been cast on adesert island.

Magda felt her pulses throb unevenly. The whole atmosphere seemedsentient and athrill with the surge of some deep-lying emotion. Shecould feel it beating up against her--the clamorous demand ofsomething hardly curbed and straining for release.

"Michael----" The word stammered past her lips.

The sound of her voice snapped the iron control he had been forcing onhimself. With a hoarse, half-strangled exclamation he caught her upfrom where she lay, crushing her slim, soft body in a grip that almoststifled her, kissing her fiercely on eyes and lips and throat. Thenabruptly he released her and, without a word, without a backward look,strode out of the cabin and up on to the deck.

Magda sank down weakly on the edge of the narrow bunk. The storm ofhis passion had swept through her as the wind sweeps through a tree,leaving her spent and trembling. Sleep was an impossibility. Tenminutes, twenty passed--she could not have told how long it was. Thenshe heard him coming back, and as he gained the threshold she sprangto her feet and faced him, nervously on the defensive. In the pale,elusive moonlight, and with that startled poise of figure, she mightwell have been the hamadryad at bay of one of her most famous dances.

Michael looked rather white and there was a grim repression about theset of his lips. As he caught sight of her face with its muteapprehension and dilated eyes, he spoke quickly.

"You should be resting," he said. "Let me tuck you up and then try togo to sleep."

There was something infinitely reassuring in the steady tones of hisvoice. It held nothing but kindness--just comradeship and kindness. Hewas master of himself once more. For her sake he had fought back therising tide of passion. It had no place while they two were here aloneon the wide waters.

He stooped and picked up the blankets, laying them over her with atenderness that seemed in some subtle way to be part of his verystrength. Her taut nerves relaxed. She smiled up at him.

"Good-night, Saint Michel," she said simply. "Take care of me."

He stooped and kissed the slim hand lying outside the blanket.

"Now and always," he answered gravely.

When Magda awoke, seven hours later, the sunlight was streaming intothe cabin. She could hear Michael moving about the deck, and shesprang up and proceeded to make such toilette as was possible in thecircumstances, taking down her hair and dressing it afresh at the tinylooking-glass hung on the wall. She had barely completed the operationwhen she heard Michael give a shout.

"Ahoy! Ahoy there!"

She ran up on deck. Approaching them was a small steam-tug, and onceagain Quarrington sent his voice ringing lustily across the water,while he flourished a large white handkerchief in the endeavour toattract the attention of those on board.

Suddenly the tug saw them and, altering her course, came fussing upalongside. Quarrington briefly explained their predicament--in theface of the /Bella Donna's/ battered appearance a lengthy explanationwas hardly necessary--and a few minutes later the tug was steaming forNetherway harbour, towing the crippled yacht behind her.

CHAPTER XXI

THE OTHER MAN

"Please, Marraine, will you give us your blessing?"

The joyous excitement and relief incidental to the safe return of thevoyagers had spent itself at last, and now, refreshed and invigoratedby a hot bath and by a meal of more varied constituents than biscuitand plain chocolate, Magda propounded her question, a gleam of mirthglancing in her eyes.

Lady Arabella glanced doubtfully from one to the other. Then a look ofundisguised satisfaction dawned in her face.

"Do you mean----" she began eagerly.

"We've been and gone and got engaged," explained Quarrington.

"My dears!" Lady Arabella jumped up with the agility of twenty ratherthan seventy and proceeded to pour out her felicitations. Incidentallyshe kissed everybody all round, including Quarrington, and her keenold hawk's eyes grew all soft and luminous like a girl's.

Coppertop was hugely excited.

"Will the wedding be to-morrow?" he asked hopefully. "And shall I be apage and carry the Fairy Lady's train?"

Magda smiled at him.

"Of course you shall be a page, Topkins. But the wedding won't bequite as soon as to-morrow," she told him.

"Don't be silly," replied Magda scathingly. "I've only just been savedfrom drowning, and I don't propose to take on such a risk as matrimonytill I've had time to recover my nerve."

Lady Arabella surveyed them both with a species of irritated approval.

"And to think," she burst out at last, indignantly, "of all the hoursI've spent having my silly portrait painted and getting cramp in mystiff old joints, and that even then it needed Providence to threatenyou both with a watery grave to bring you up to the scratch!"

"Well, we're engaged now," submitted Magda meekly.

Lady Arabella chuckled sardonically.

"If you weren't, you'd have to be--after last night!" she commenteddrily.

"No one need know about last night," retorted Magda.

"Huh!" Lady Arabella snorted. "Half Netherway will know the tale bymidday. And you may be sure your best enemy will hear of it. Theyalways do."

"Never mind. It will make an excellent advertisement," observed Magdaphilosophically. "Can't you see it in all the papers?--'NARROW ESCAPEOF THE WIELITZSKA.' In big capitals."

They all laughed, realising the great amount of probability containedin her forecast. And, thanks to an enterprising young journalist whochanced to be prowling about Netherway on that particular day, theLondon newspapers flared out into large headlines, accompanied byvivid and picturesque details of the narrow escape while yachting ofthe famous dancer and of the well-known artist, Michael Quarrington--who, in some of the cheaper papers, was credited with having saved theWielitzska's life by swimming ashore with her.

The immediate result was an augmented post-bag for the Hermitage, andGillian had to waste the better part of a couple of sunshiny days inwriting round to Magda's friends assuring them of her continuedexistence and wellbeing, and thanking them for their kind inquiries.

It was decided to keep the engagement private for the present, andlife at the Hermitage resumed the even tenor of its way, Magdacontinuing to sit daily for the picture of Circe which Michael wasanxious to complete before she returned to London for the autumnseason.

"It's /our/ picture now, Saint Michel," she told him, with a happy,possessive pride in his work.

In this new atmosphere of tranquil happiness Magda bloomed like aflower in the sun. To the nameless natural charm which was always hersthere was added a fresh sweetness and appeal, and the full revelationof her love for him startled even Michael. He had not realised thedeep capacity for love which had lain hidden beneath her nonchalance.

It seemed as though her whole nature had undergone a change. Alonewith him she was no longer the assured woman of the world, the spoiltand feted dancer, but just a simple, unaffected girl, sometimes alittle shy, almost diffident, at others frank and spontaneous with thesplendid candour and simplicity of a woman who knows no fear of love,but goes courageously to meet it and all that it demands of her.

She was fugitively sweet and tender with Coppertop, and now and thenher eyes would shine with a quiet, dreaming light as though shevisioned a future wherein someone like Coppertop, only littler, mightlie in the crook of her arm.

Often during these tranquil summer days the two were to be foundtogether, Magda recounting the most gorgeous stories of knights anddragons such as Coppertop's small soul delighted in. On one suchoccasion, at the end of a particularly thrilling narrative, he satback on his heels and regarded her with a certain wistful anxiety.

"I suppose," he asked rather forlornly, "when you're married they'llgive you a little boy like me, Fairy Lady, won't they?"

The clear, warm colour ran up swiftly beneath her skin.

"Perhaps so, Topkins," she answered very low.

He heaved a big sigh. "He'll be a very /lucky/ little boy," he saidplaintively. "If Mummie couldn't have been my mummie, I'd have choosedyou."

And so, in this tender atmosphere of peace and contentment, the summerslipped by until it was time for Magda to think of going back toLondon. The utter content and happiness of these weeks almostfrightened her sometimes.

"It can't last, Gilly," she confided to Gillian one day, caught by anaccess of superstitious fear. "It simply /can't/ last! No one wasmeant to be as happy as I am!"

"I think we were all meant to be happy," replied Gillian simply."Happy and good!" she added, laughing.

"Yes. But I haven't been particularly good. I've just done whatever itoccurred to me to do without considering the consequences. I expect Ishall be made to take my consequences all in a heap together one day."

Gillian smiled.

"Then I suppose we shall all of us have to rally round and get you outof them," she said cheerfully.

"Perhaps--perhaps you wouldn't be able to."

There was a strange note of foreboding in Magda's voice--an accent offatality, and despite herself Gillian experienced a reflex sense ofuneasiness.

"Nonsense!" she said brusquely. "What on earth has put all theseridiculous notions into your head?"

Magda smiled at her. "I think it was four lines I read in a bookyesterday. They set me thinking."

"More's the pity then!" grumbled Gillian. "What were they?"

Magda was silent a moment, looking out over the sea with abstractedeyes. It was so blue to-day--all blue and gold in the dancingsunlight. But she knew that self-same sea could be grey--grey andchill as death.

Her glance came slowly back to Gillian's face as she quoted thefragment of verse which had persisted in her thoughts:

"To-day and all the still unborn To-morrows Have sprung from Yesterday. For Woe or Weal The Soul is weighted by the Burden of Dead Days-- Bound to the unremitting Past with Ropes of Steel."

After a moment she added:

"Even you couldn't cut through 'ropes of steel,' my Gillyflower."

Gillian tried to shrug away this fanciful depression of the moment.

"Well, by way of a counterblast to your dejection of spirit, I proposeto send an announcement of your engagement to the /Morning Post/.You're not meaning to keep it private after we get back to town, areyou?"

"Oh, no. It was only that I didn't want to be pestered withcongratulations while we were down here. I suppose they'll have tocome some day"--with a small grimace of disgust.

"You'll be snowed under with them," Gillian assured her encouragingly.

The public announcement of the engagement preceded Magda's return fromNetherway by a few days, so that by the time the Hermitage house-partyactually broke up, its various members returning to town, all Londonwas fairly humming with the news. The papers were full of it.Portraits of the fiances appeared side by side, together with briefhistories of their respective careers up to date, and accompanied byrefreshing details concerning their personal tastes.

"Dear me, I never knew Michael had a passion for raw meat before,"remarked Magda, after reading various extracts from the differentaccounts aloud for Gillian's edification.

"Has he?" Gillian was arranging flowers and spoke somewhatindistinctly, owing to the fact that she had the stem of achrysanthemum between her lips.

"Yes, he must have. Listen to this, 'Mr. Quarrington's wonderfulcreations are evidently not entirely the fruit of the spirit, since weunderstand that his staple breakfast dish consists of a couple ofunderdone cutlets--so lightly cooked, in fact, as to be almost raw.'I'm glad I've learned that," pursued Magda earnestly. "It seems to mean important thing for a wife to know. Don't you think so, Gillian?"

Gillian shouted with delight.

"Of course I do! Do let's ask Michael to lunch and offer him a coupleof raw cutlets on a charger."

"No," insisted Magda firmly. "I shall keep a splendid treat like thatfor him till after we're married. Even at a strictly conservativeestimate it should be worth a new hat to me."

"Or a dose of arsenic in your next cup of tea," suggested Gillian,giggling.

The following evening was the occasion of Magda's first appearance atthe Imperial after the publication of her engagement, and the theatrewas packed from floor to ceiling. "House Full" boards were exhibitedoutside at quite an early hour, and when Magda appeared on the stageshe was received with such enthusiasm that for a time it wasimpossible to proceed with the ballet. When finally the curtain fellon what the critics characterised next day as "the most appealingperformance of /The Swan-Maiden/ which Mademoiselle Wielitzska has yetgiven us," she received an absolute ovation. The audience went half-crazy with excitement, applauding deliriously, while the front of thestage speedily became converted into a veritable bank of flowers, fromamidst which Magda bowed and smiled her thanks.

She enjoyed every moment of it, every handclap. She was radiantlyhappy, and this spontaneous sharing in her happiness by the big publicwhich idolised her served but to intensify it. She was almost cryingas she returned to her dressing-room after taking a dozen or morecalls, and when, as usual, Virginie met her on the threshold, shedropped the great sheaf of lilies she was carrying and flung her armsround the old woman's neck.

"And who should be, /mon petite chou/, if not thou?" returned the oldwoman with conviction. "Of course they love thee! /Mais bien sur/!Doest thou not dance for them as none else can dance and give themangel visions that they could not imagine for themselves?" She paused.Then thrusting her hand suddenly into the pocket of her apron andproducing a card: "/Tiens/! I forgot! Monsieur Davilof waits. Willmademoiselle receive him?"

Magda nodded. She had not seen Antoine since her return fromNetherway. He had been away in Poland, visiting his mother whom, bythe way, he adored. But as her engagement to Michael was now publicshe was anxious to get her first meeting with the musician over. Hewould probably rave a little, despairing in the picturesque anddramatic fashion characteristic of him, and the sooner he "got it outof his system," as Gillian had observed on one occasion, the betterfor everyone concerned. So Magda braced herself for the interview, andprepared to receive a tragical and despondent Davilof.

But she was not in the least prepared for the man as he appeared whenVirginie ushered him into the dressing-room and retired, discreetlyclosing the door behind her. Magda, her hand outstretched to greethim, paused in sheer dismay, her arm falling slowly to her side.

She had never seen so great a change in any man. His face was grey--grey and lined like the face of a man who has had no sleep for days.His shoulders stooped a little as though he were too weary to holdhimself upright, and there was a curiously rigid look about hisfeatures, particularly the usually mobile mouth. The only live thingabout him seemed to be his eyes. They blazed with a burning brightnessthat made her think of flame. With it all, he was as immaculatelygroomed, his small golden beard as perfectly trimmed, as ever.

"Antoine!" His name faltered from Magda's lips. The man's face, itsbeauty all marred by some terrible turmoil of the soul, shocked her.

He vouchsafed no greeting, but came swiftly to her side.

"Is it true?" he demanded imperiously.

She shrank back from him. There was a dynamic force about him thatstartled her.

"Is what true?"

"Is it true that you're engaged to Quarrington?"

"Of course it is. It was in all the papers. Didn't you see it?"

"Yes, I saw it. I didn't believe it. I was in Poland when I heard andI started for England at once. But I was taken ill on the journey.Since then I've been travelling night and day." He paused, adding in atone of finality: "You must break it off."

"Break it off? Are you crazy, Antoine?"

"No, I'm not crazy. But you're mine. You're meant for me. And no otherman shall have you."

Magda's first impulse was to order him out of the room. But the man'shaggard face was so pitifully eloquent of the agony he had beenenduring that she had not the heart. Instead, she temporisedpersuasively.

"Don't talk like that, Antoine." She spoke very gently. "You don'tmean it, you know. If--if you do care for me as you say, you'd like meto be happy, wouldn't you?"

"I'd make you happy," he said hoarsely.

She shook her head.

"No," she answered. "You couldn't make me happy. Only Michael can dothat. So you must let me go to him. . . . Antoine, I'd rather go withyour good wishes. Won't you give them to me? We've been friends solong--"

"/Friends/?" he broke in fiercely. "No! We've never been 'friends.'I've been your lover from the first moment I saw you, and shall beyour lover till I die!"

Magda retreated before his vehemence. She was still wearing hercostume of the Swan-Maiden, and there was something frailly virginaland elusive about her as she drew away from him that set the hot,foreign blood in him on fire. In two strides he was at her side, hishands gripping her bare arms with a savage clasp that hurt her.

"/Mon adoree/!"

His voice was harsh with the tensity of passion, and the cry thatstruggled from her throat for utterance was smothered by his lips onhers. The burning kisses seemed to scorch her--consuming, overwhelmingher. When at last he took his mouth from hers she tried unavailinglyto free herself. But his clasp of her only tightened.

"Now you know how I love you," he said grimly. He was breathing ratherfast, but in some curious way he seemed to have regained his self-control. It was as though he had only slipped the leash of passion sothat she might, as he said, comprehend his love for her. "Do you thinkI'll give you up? I tell you I'd rather kill you than see youQuarrington's wife."

"No," he said in a measured voice. "Don't struggle. I'm not going tolet you go. Not yet. I've reached my limit. You shall go when youpromise to marry me. Me, not Quarrington."

She had not been frightened by the storm of passion which had carriedhim headlong. That had merely roused her to anger. But this quiet,purposeful composure which had succeeded it filled her with an oddkind of misgiving.

"It's absurd to talk like that," she said, holding on desperately toher self-possession. "It's silly--and melodramatic, and only makes merealise how glad I am I shall be Michael's wife and not yours."

"You will never be Quarrington's wife."

He spoke with conviction. Magda called up all her courage to defy him.

"And do you propose to prevent it?" she asked contemptuously.

"Yes." Then, suddenly: "/Adoree/, don't force me to do it! I don'twant to. Because it will hurt you horribly. And it will all be savedif you'll promise to marry me."

He spoke appealingly, with an earnestness that was unmistakable. ButMagda's nerve was gradually returning.

"You don't seem to understand that you can't prevent my marryingMichael--or anyone else," she said coolly. "You haven't the power."

"I can prevent your marrying Michael"--doggedly.

She was silent a moment.

"I suppose," she said at last, "you think that because he once thoughtbadly of me you can make him think the same again. Well, you can't.Michael and I trust each other--absolutely!"

Her face was transfigured. Michael trusted her now! Nothing couldreally hurt her while he believed in her. She could afford to laugh atAntoine's threat.

"And now," she said quietly, "will you please release me?"

Slowly, reluctantly Davilof's hands dropped from her arms, revealingred weals where the grip of his fingers had crushed the soft, whiteflesh. He uttered a stifled exclamation as his eyes fell on the angry-looking marks.

"/Mon dieu/! I've hurt you--"

"No!" Magda faced him with a defiance that was rather splendid. "No!/You can't/ hurt me, Davilof. Only the man I love can do that."

He flinched at the proud significance of the words--denying him eventhe power to hurt her. It was almost as though she had struck him,contemptuously disdainful of his toy weapons--the weapons of the manwho didn't count.

There was a long silence. At last he spoke.

"You'll be sorry for that," he said in a voice of concentrated anger."Damned sorry. Because it isn't true. I /can/ hurt you. And by God, ifyou won't marry me, I will! . . . Magda----" With one of the swiftchanges so characteristic of the man he softened suddenly intopassionate supplication. "Have a little mercy! God! If you knew how Ilove you, you couldn't turn me away. Wait! Think again--"

"That will do." She checked him imperiously. "I don't want your love.And for the future please understand that you won't even be a friend.I don't wish to see or speak to you again!"

CHAPTER XXII

THE ROPES OF STEEL

Magda sat gazing idly into the fire, watching with abstracted eyes theflames leap up and curl gleefully round the fresh logs with which shehad just fed it. She was thinking about nothing in particular--merelyrevelling in the pleasant warmth and comfort of the room and in theprospect of a lazy evening spent at home, since to-night she was notdue to appear in any of the ballets to be given at the ImperialTheatre.

Outside, the snow was falling steadily in feathery flakes, hiding thegrime of London beneath a garment of shimmering white and transformingthe commonplace houses built of brick and mortar, each capped with itsugly chimneystack, into glittering fairy palaces, crowned with silvertowers and minarets.

The bitter weather served to emphasise the easy comfort of the room,and Magda curled up into her chair luxuriously. She was expectingMichael to dinner at Friars' Holm this evening. They had not seen eachother for three whole days, so that there was an added edge to herenjoyment of the prospect. She would have so much to tell him! Aboutthe triumphant reception she had had the other night down at thetheatre--he had been prevented from being present--and about theunwarrantable attitude Davilof had adopted, which had been worryingher not a little. He would sympathise with her over that--theeffortless sympathy of the man in possession!

Then the unwelcome thought obtruded itself that if the snow continuedfalling Michael might be weather-bound and unable to get out toHampstead. She uncurled herself from her chair and ran to the window.The sky stretched sombrely away in every direction. No sign of a breakin the lowering, snow-filled clouds! She drummed on the window withimpatient fingers; and then, drowning the little tapping noise theymade, came the sound of an opening door and Melrose's placid voiceannouncing:

"Mr. Quarrington."

Magda whirled round from the window.

"Michael!" she exclaimed joyfully. "I was just wondering if you wouldbe able to get over this evening. I suppose you came while you could!"--laughing. "I shouldn't be in the least surprised if you were snowedup here. Shall you mind--dreadfully--if you are?"

But Michael made no response to the tenderly mocking question, nor didher smile draw from him any answering smile. She looked at himwaveringly. He had been in the room quite long enough to take her inhis arms and kiss her. And he hadn't done it.

Her mind, alertly prescient, divined significance in the mere wordingof the phrase.

"Then there is--something?"

"Yes, there is something."

His voice sounded forced, and Magda waited with a strange feeling oftension for him to continue.

"I want to ask you a question," he went on in the same carefullymeasured accents. "Did you ever stay at a place called Stockleigh--Stockleigh Farm at Ashencombe?"

Stockleigh! At the sound of the word it seemed to Magda as though ahand closed suddenly round her heart, squeezing it so tightly that shecould not breathe.

"I--yes, I stayed there," she managed to say at last.

"Ah-h!" It was no more than a suddenly checked breath. "When were youthere?" The question came swiftly, like the thrust of a sword. Withit, it seemed to Magda that she could feel the first almostimperceptible pull of the "ropes of steel."

"I was there--the summer before last," she said slowly.

Michael made no answer. Only in the silence that followed she saw hisface change. Something that had been hope--a fighting hope--died outof his eyes and his jaw seemed to set itself with a curiousinflexibility.

She waited for him to speak--waited with a keyed-up intensity oflonging that was almost physically painful. At last, unable to bearthe continued silence, she spoke again. Her voice cracked a little.

"Why--why do you ask, Michael?"

He looked at her and a sudden cynical amusement gleamed in his eyes--an amusement so bitterly unmirthful that there seemed something almostbrutal about it. Her hand went up to her face as though to screen outthe sight of it.

"You can't guess, I suppose?" he said with dry, harsh irony. Then,after a moment: "Why did you never tell me you were there? You neverspoke of it. . . . Wasn't it curious you should never speak of it?"

She made a step towards him. She could not endure this torturingsuspense another instant. It was racking her. She must know whatStockleigh signified to him.

"What do you mean? Tell me what you mean!" she asked desperately.

"Do you remember the story I told you down at Netherway--of a man andhis wife and another woman?"

"Yes, I remember"--almost whispering.

"That was the story of my sister, June, and her husband, Dan Storran.You--were the other woman."

She felt his eyes--those eyes out of which all hope had died--fixed onher.

"June--your sister? Your sister? Are you sure?" she stammeredstupidly.

It couldn't be true! Not even God could have thought of a punishmentso cruel, so awful as this. That June--the woman who had died justbecause she "had no heart to go on living"--should be Michael'ssister! Oh, it was a crazy tangling of the threads--mad! Like somemacabre invention sprung from a disordered brain. She wanted to laugh,and she knew if she began to laugh she should never stop. She felt shewas losing her hold over herself. With a violent effort she clutchedat her self-control.

"Will you say it all over again, please?" she said in a flat voice. "Idon't think I understand."

"Nor did I till to-day," he replied shortly. "Davilof made meunderstand--this morning."

"Davilof?" The word seemed to drag itself from her throat. . . .Davilof--who had been at Stockleigh that summer! Then it was all goingto be true, after all.

"Yes, Davilof. He had chanced on the fact that June was my sister.Very few people knew it, because, when she married, it was against ourfather's wishes, and she had cut herself adrift from the family. Iwanted to help her, but she would never let me." He paused, then wenton tonelessly: "It's all quite clear, isn't it? You know everythingthat happened while you were at Stockleigh. I've told you whathappened afterwards. Storran cleared out of the country at once, andJune had nothing left to live for. The only thing I didn't know wasthe name of the woman who had smashed up both their lives. I saw Danin Paris . . . He came to me at my studio. But he was a white man. Henever gave away the name of the woman who had ruined him. I only knewshe had spent that particular summer at Stockleigh. It was Davilof whotold me who the woman was."

/"I can prevent your marrying Quarrington!"/ Magda could hear againthe quiet conviction of Antoine's utterance. So he had known, then,when he threatened her, that June was Michael's sister! She wondereddully how long he had been aware of the fact--how he had firststumbled across it and realised its value as a hammer with which tocrush her happiness. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered any more.The main fact was that he /had/ known.

June was dead! Amid the confused welter of emotions which seemed tohave utterly submerged her during the last few minutes, Magda hadalmost lost sight of this as a fact by itself--as distinct from itsidentity with the fact that Michael's sister was dead. She feltvaguely sorry for June.

Since the day she and Gillian had left Ashencombe she had heardnothing of Storran or his wife. No least scrap of news relating tothem had come her way. In the ordinary course of events it was hardlylikely that it would. The circles of their respective lives did notoverlap each other. And Magda had made no effort to discover what hadhappened at Stockleigh after she had left there. She had been glad toshut the door on that episode in her life. She was not proud of it.

There were other incidents, too, which she could have wished wereblotted out--the Raynham incident amongst them. With the new insightwhich love had brought her she was beginning to rate these things attheir true value, to realise how little she had understood of alllove's exquisite significance when she played with it as lightly as achild might play with a trinket. She had learned better now--learnedthat love was of the spirit as well as of the body, and that inplaying at love she had played with men's souls.

She believed she had put that part of her life behind her--all thoseunrecognising days before love came to her. And now, without warning,sudden as an Eastern night, the past had risen up and confronted her.The implacable ropes of steel held her in bondage.

"Michael . . . can't you--forgive me?"

Her voice wavered and broke as she realised the utter futility of herquestion. Between them, now and always, there must lie the young, deadbody of June Storran.

"Forgive you?" Michael's voice was harsh with an immeasurablebitterness. "Good God! What are you made of that you can even ask me?It's women like you who turn this world into plain hell! . . . Lookback! Have you ever looked back, I wonder?" He paused, and she knewhis eyes were searching her--those keen, steady eyes, hard, now, likeflint--searching the innermost recesses of her being. She felt asthough he were dragging the soul out of her body, stripping it nakedto the merciless lash of truth.

"June--my little sister, the happiest of mortals--dead, through you.And Storran--he was a big man, white all through--down and out. AndGod knows who else has had their sun put out by you. . . . You're likea blight--spreading disease and corruption wherever you go."

A little moan broke from her lips. For a moment it was a physicalimpossibility for her to speak. She could only shrink, mute andquivering, beneath the flail of his scorn.

At last: "Is--is that what you think of me?" she almost whispered.

"Yes."

She winced at the harsh monosyllable. There was a finality about it--definite, unalterable. She looked at him dry-eyed, her face tragicallybeautiful in its agony. But he seemed impervious to either its beautyor its suffering. There was no hint of softening in him. Withoutanother word he swung round on his heel and turned to leave her.

She laid an imploring hand on his arm, and at the touch of her hisiron composure shook a little. For a moment the hardness in his eyeswas wiped out by a look of intolerable pain. Then, with a quiet,inexorable movement he released himself from her straining clasp.

"There's no question of mercy," he said inflexibly. "I'm not judgingyou, or punishing you. It's simply that I can't marry you. . . . Youmust see that June's death--my sister's death--lies at your door."

"No," she said. "No. I suppose you can't marry me--now."

Her breath came in short, painful gasps. Her face seemed to have grownsmaller--shrunk. There was a pinched look about the nostrils and everydrop of blood had drained away, leaving even her lips a curiousgreyish-white. She leaned forward, swaying a little.

"I suppose," she said in a clear, dry voice, "you don't even love meany more?"

His hands clenched and he took a sudden impetuous step towards her.

"Not love you?" he said. And at last the man's own agony broke throughhis enforced calm, shaking his voice so that it was hoarse andterrible. "Not love you? I love you now as I loved you the day I firstsaw you. God in heaven! Did you think love could be killed so easily?Does it die--just because it's forbidden by every decent instinct thata man possesses? If so, nine-tenths of us would find the world aneasier place to live in!"

"And there is--no forgiveness, Michael?" The lovely grief-wrung facewas uplifted to his beseechingly.

"Don't ask me!" he said hoarsely. "You know there can be none."

He turned and strode to the door. He did not look back even when hisname tore itself like a cry between her lips. The next moment thesound of a door's closing came dully to her ears.

She looked vaguely round the room. The fire was dying, the charredlogs sinking down on to a bed of smouldering cinders. A touch wouldscatter them from their semblance of logs into a heap of grey,formless ash. Outside the window the snow still fell monotonously,wrapping the world in a passionless, chill winding-sheet.

With a little broken cry she stumbled forward on to her knees, herarms outflung across the table.

CHAPTER XXIII

ACCOUNT RENDERED

The long, interminable night was over at last. Never afterwards, allthe days of her life, could Magda look back on the black horror ofthose hours without a shudder. She felt as though she had been throughhell and come out on the other side, to find stretching before heronly the blank grey desolation of chaos.

She was stripped of everything--of love, of happiness, even of hope.There was nothing in the whole world to look forward to. There neverwould be again. And when she looked back it was with eyes that hadbeen vouchsafed a terrible enlightenment.

Phrases which had fallen from Michael's lips scourged her anewthroughout the long hours of the night. "Women like you make thisworld into plain hell," he had said. "You're like a blight--spreadingdisease and corruption wherever you go." And the essential truth whicheach sentence held left her writhing.

It was all true--horribly, hideously true. The magical, mysteriouspower of beauty which had been given her, which might have helped tolighten the burden of the sad old world wherever she passed, she hadused to destroy and deface and mutilate. The debt against her--thedebt of all the pain and grief which she had brought to others--hadbeen mounting up, higher and higher through the years. And now thetime had come when payment was to be exacted.

Quite simply and directly, without seeking in any way to exculpateherself, she had told Gillian the bare facts of what had happened--that her engagement was broken off and the reason why. But she hadchecked all comment and the swift, understanding sympathy whichGillian would have given. Criticism or sympathy would equally havebeen more than she could bear.

"There is nothing to be said or done about it," she maintained. "I'vesinned, and now I'm to be punished for my sins. That's all."

The child of Hugh Vallincourt spoke in that impassive summing up ofthe situation and Lady Arabella, with her intimate knowledge of bothHugh and his sister Catherine, would have ascribed it instantly to theVallincourt strain in her god-daughter. To Gillian, however, to whomthe Vallincourts were nothing more than a name, the strangesubmissiveness of it was incomprehensible. As the days passed, shetried to rouse Magda from the apathy into which she seemed to havefallen, but without success.

"It's no use, Gillyflower," she would reply with a weary little smile."There /is/ no way out. Do you remember I once said I was too happyfor it to last? It was quite true. . . . Have you told Marraine?" sheasked suddenly.

Gillian regarded her with some anxiety. That Magda, usually sounreserved and spontaneous, should shut her out of her confidencethoroughly disquieted her. She felt afraid. It seemed to her as thoughthe girl were more or less stunned by the enormity of the blow whichhad befallen her. She went about with a curious absence of interest inanything--composed, quiet, absorbed in her own thoughts, only rousingherself to appear at the Imperial as usual. Probably her work at thetheatre was the one thing that saved her from utter collapse.

As far as Gillian knew she had not shed a single tear. Only her faceseemed to grow daily more strained-looking, and her eyes held acurious expression that was difficult to interpret.

There were days which she spent entirely in the seclusion of her ownroom, and then Virginie alone was allowed entrance. The oldFrenchwoman would come in with some special little dish she had cookedwith her own hands, hoping to tempt her beloved mistress's appetite--which in these days had dwindled to such insignificant proportionsthat Virginie was in despair.

"Thou must eat," she would say.

"I don't want anything--really, Virginie," Magda would insist.

"And wherefore not?" demanded Virginie indignantly one day. "Thou artnot one of the Sisters of Penitence that thou must needs deny thyselfthe good things of life."

Magda looked up with a sudden flash of interest.

"The Sisters of Penitence, Virginie? Who are they? Tell me aboutthem."

Virginie set a plate containing an epicurean omelet triumphantly infront of her.

"Eat that, then, /cherie/, while I tell thee of them," she repliedwith masterly diplomacy. "It is good, the omelet. Virginie made it forthee with her own hands."

Magda laughed faintly in spite of herself and began upon the omeletobediently.

"Very well, then. Tell me about the Sisters of Penitence. Are theyalways being sorry for what they've done?"

"It is a sisterhood, /mademoiselle cherie/, for those who wouldwithdraw themselves from the world. They are very strict, I believe,the sisters, and mortify the flesh exceedingly. Me, I cannot see whywe should leave the beautiful world the /bon dieu/ has put us into.For certain, He would not have put us in if He had not meant us tostay there!"

"Perhaps--they are happier--out of the world, Virginia," suggestedMagda slowly.

"But my niece, who was in the sisterhood a year, was glad to come outagain. Though, of course, she left her sins behind her, and that wasgood. It is always good to get rid of one's sins, /n'est-ce pas/?"

"Get rid of your sins? But how can you?"

"If one does penance day and night, day and night, for a whole longyear, one surely expiates them! And then"--with calm certainty--"ofcourse one has got rid of them. They are wiped off the slate and onebegins again. At least, it was so with my niece. For when she came outof the sisterhood, the man who had betrayed her married her, and theyhave three--no, four /bebes/ now. So that it is evident /le bon dieu/was pleased with her penance and rewarded her accordingly."

Magda repressed an inclination to smile at the naive simplicity ofVirginie's creed. Life would indeed be an easy affair if one could"get rid of one's sins" on such an ingenuous principal of quid proquo!

But Virginie came of French peasant stock, and to her untutored mindsuch a process of wiping the slate clean seemed extremely reasonable.She continued with enthusiasm:

"She but took the Vow of Penitence for a year. It is a rule of thesisterhood. If one has sinned greatly, one can take a vow of penitencefor a year and expiate the sin. Some remain altogether and take thefinal vows. But my niece--no! She sinned and she paid. And then shecame back into the world again. She is a good girl, my niece Suzette.Mademoiselle has enjoyed her omelet? Yes?"

For long after Virginie had left her, Magda sat quietly thinking. Thestory of the old Frenchwoman's niece had caught hold of herimagination. Like herself she had sinned, though differently. Withinher own mind Magda wondered whether she or Suzette were in reality thegreater sinner of the two. Suzette had at least given all, withoutthought of self, whereas she had only taken--taken with both hands,giving nothing in return.

Probably Suzette had been an attractive little person--of the sametype of brown-eyed, vivacious youth which must have been Virginie'sfive-and-thirty years ago--and her prettiness had caused her downfall.Magda glanced towards the mirror. It was through her beauty sheherself had sinned. It had given her so much power, that exquisite,perfect body of hers, and she had pitifully misused the power it hadbestowed. The real difference between herself and Suzette lay in thefact that the little French girl had paid the uttermost farthing ofthe price demanded--had submitted herself to discipline till she hadsurely expiated all the evil she had done. What if she, likewise, wereto seek some such discipline?

The idea had presented itself to her at precisely the moment when shewas in the grip of an agony of recoil from her former way of life.Like her father, she had been suddenly brought up short and forced tosurvey her actions through the eyes of someone else, to look at allthat she had done from another's angle of vision. And coincidentally,just as in the case of her father, the abrupt downfall of her hopes,the sudden shattering of her happiness, seemed as though it were dueto the intervention of an angry God.